Yet it's big news that, when her latest contract expires on Nov. 24, she's off to Fox Business Network, which trails CNBC badly in the ratings, and Fox News, which doesn't.

The bigger story here might be just how small an audience we're talking about. According to Nielsen CNBC has been averaging 135,000 viewers, Fox Business Network 46,000. On Nov. 12, TVBytheNumbers reported Fox Business' daytime audience "in the demo," people aged 25-54, was 10,000. Out of 96 services available in the third quarter, Fox Business Network was 85th in the daytime, which is when it draws its biggest audience.

If Bartiromo has just 45,000 fans who will follow her across to Fox Business Network, that doubles the network's audience. Take those viewers away from CNBC and the two networks are tied. That's what Fox is banking on.

But is the prize worth it? Business news, unlike any other beat save perhaps technology, just doesn't take to the small screen. Investors prefer words to pictures and numbers to words. And businessmen don't have time to look at TVs during the day -- they're working.

It may seem strange that someone who works for Jim Cramer might be writing this. But the TV audience for business and investing has never been that large. In normal times, it shouldn't be. There's a 50-50 chance that the audience for this story alone will be bigger than Fox Business Network's daytime ratings in the demo.

The Bartiromo story probably says more about Wall Street than it does about TV, because Wall Street has a dirty little secret. The stock exchange is basically a false front. The trading floor itself is little more than a TV studio, and all those people in suits wandering around it are basically extras.

The real work of Wall Street happens in computers, far away from any exchange floor. Intercontinental Exchange (ICE), the Atlanta-based trading company that completed its acquisition of the New York Stock Exchange last week, has its main CoLocation computing center in Chicago. The NYSE maintains a large data center in New Jersey.

In the cloud computing era, a data center can be anywhere. In the age of the Internet, its trades are cached just about everywhere. The real action happens on your side of this screen, and on millions of screens like it, all around the world.

When it comes to investments, you're the star. You're where the action is. The rest of us are trying to follow you, figure you out, anticipate your next move.

If financial news is a telescope, it's facing the wrong way.

At the time of publication the author owned no stock in companies mentioned in this article.

The deal gives ICE access to a leading provider of post-trade services, including settlement, central securities depositories, and associated services for cross-border transactions across asset classes.